


the cruel

by most_curiously_blue_eyes



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Blood and Gore, M/M, graphical depiction of torture, obsessive mairon, possessive Mairon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 16:03:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4712006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/most_curiously_blue_eyes/pseuds/most_curiously_blue_eyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His Lord's orders, he shall obey. A gift accepted. A gift torn apart. Mairon and the loss of innocence, so to speak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the cruel

**Author's Note:**

> set possibly sometime after "metamorphosis"

His Lord often calls him to the chambers high in the tall towers of the frozen fortress. There, clad in naught but his pale physical form like back in the days when the Firstborn had not yet awakened, he asks that Mairon speaks: about battle strategies, but also about things so mundane it is difficult to believe they can hold the interest of the mightiest of the Valar. And yet. And yet. For Melkor is driven as much by the instincts in him which make him crave the power and dominion over all of creation as he is led by a curiosity natural to a being who for long understood little about what was not himself: and thusly even the common events in the lives of the Orc-folk, as these Elves are called, are a source of entertainment to him, and he oftentimes has his Lieutenant speak to him of those things.

Melkor enjoys greatly listening to the tales about his servants doing every day crafts and tasks as though the stories of tailors and potters and even barbers hold answers to questions of highest import. In these days, the fortress functions as a busy city dwelling and, to the eyes of one who might not know better, it may seem like yet another of the homes of Elves, if particularly cold and bereft of life – for it is long years yet before the taint or else the corruption consumes the fairness of the Orc-folk; and only upon closer inspection now can stranger eyes see the unmistakeable signs of these Elves' loyalty to the mightiest of the Valar: they each carry proudly black tattoos on their necks, on their faces, some on the backs of their hands, depicting a likeness of the crown that adorns their Master's dark head, for to them he is the true King of Arda.

Mairon himself carries a mark of this kind, but his is hidden from unwelcome sight. He branded his own flesh while he was working in the forges and the pain was exquisite; both elated and anchored he had felt when the tan skin was charred and the sickly sweet scent of burning flesh filled his nostrils. Below the collarbone, on the left side of his chest, the mark glistens where the flesh was burned and healed, and Mairon makes sure to keep the mark when he changes form.

That story, the origins of his own mark, he tells to Melkor on a night when a thunderstorm shakes the foundations of the World. It is a night unlike the others, for the black clouds smother the stars and keep Arda in a nigh-invincible state of darkness, interrupted only when lightning strikes and opens a crack in the crust of the Earth. Oh, is Melkor joyful on this long-lasting night! There is a kind of glee in him that is rare even in these days of tentative peace: he welcomes Mairon in his chambers with a smile not unlike those offered in their earliest days back when the Lieutenant was a nameless spirit in the employ of Aule, and his voice is warm.

His eyes hold the wisdom of eternity when Mairon speaks to him of forever marking himself with what is associated with loyalty towards Melkor.

'And so you make this oath to me even when I asked for none,' the Vala says softly. He stands by the big window facing north and the dance of lightning outside is reflected on his pale skin. After this day, Mairon will rarely see a display so beautiful as his Lord is in the midst of the storm: free and glorious and filled to the brim with raw power; surely at this moment Melkor is mightier than the Valar who would scorn him, mightier even than his own image in the minds of those that fear or admire him.

Mairon loves him then more strongly than he thought he was capable of loving.

'Look at me,' Melkor demands and Mairon helplessly looks on and beholds his Master's physical perfection and the might which he feels just below the surface of Melkor's flesh and his own. And how he desires to touch and to take unto himself all it is that makes Melkor the being he is! Yet he dares not lay a single caress on the body of his Lord, not now, not when his love is yet pure and free of the taint which will come later and consume all that it touches. No, he could not dare: surely, this would be but blasphemy.

An Elf enters the chamber uninvited, but fearless as though entitled to this trespass. Mairon knows him, abhors him: for where he may be with his Master, this Elf is present also, a golden vision of the youth of the Firstborn. And he looks with his wide, seemingly innocent eyes, and he beholds the nakedness of Melkor, and Mairon wants to **hurt** him: but Melkor acts as though the Elf was not even there, and he keeps Mairon's gaze and he holds his attention.

And Mairon does not notice when the Elf leaves, but the robes Melkor favours await laundered on the bed for when he deems it preferable to don them. A servant, then. A simple servant.

'What do you see?' Asks the mightiest of the Valar. His vanity or else his hunger for compliments demands that he be worshipped and so that is what Mairon does most eagerly of all: with his words, he praises the perfection of Melkor's lean yet muscular limbs, of his long hair tousled by the stormy wind, of his hands, smooth and white and cool to the touch, of his soul, blazing bright amidst the bleak beings which surround him. At the last, Melkor frowns and says,

'What I see is chaos and decay,' and he turns his back on Mairon as he looks out towards the northern lands, having seemingly lost interest in the conversation.

'My Lord may be beloved of chaos,' Mairon says then, bold and unafraid to counter the words of the Vala as he has always been. 'That much is true, for my Lord's unruly nature can oft be perceived as chaotic indeed. Yet decay, that I see naught of when I behold my Lord with my gaze. May decay remain the domain of lowly creatures which hold lives so easily crushed, may it mar the thoughts of those whose existence is worth less than a blink of my Lord's eye; for in my Lord I see naught but the being of highest perfection and I refuse to see otherwise.'

'Such thinking is faulty,' says Melkor, turning back as though to assess him with his eyes which cannot possibly hold any expression in them for lack of iris, and yet: Mairon sees fondness and still a drop of annoyance, as though the idealization of his person causes Melkor to become impatient.

'When you call a thing perfect, you perceive it as a whole: a final product, if you will, one which cannot be transformed further. Any effort to change that which is perfect will cause ruin instead; yet you do not wish me to stay as I am, do you?' The Vala asks, looking at his Lieutenant with a gaze piercing and maybe cruel from underneath thick eyelashes.

And Mairon realizes his Lord is correct, like every other time: for he yearns for but one change in Melkor, for one final transformation, and he dreams that there exists the potential for this transformation to happen. No, he does not dream it, he knows it: he already experienced a moment in time when there was passion in Melkor's being, passion of the kind he so longs for. That time when they kissed, when their lips joined and their spirits mingled – it never happened again, but Mairon still remembers it fresh on his mind, burned into his memory like the mark of loyalty is burned into his flesh.

'I would not ruin you, my Lord,' he whispers, forcing himself to look away from the beautiful form of the Vala whom he desires in a blasphemous, sinful manner, whom he wishes to embrace and introduce to physical pleasures far beyond that simple kiss long ago.

But he shall not.

'Indeed you would not,' replies Melkor and he is saddened. 'But there is conflict in the way you perceive me: as your Master, your teacher, your friend, your God – and yet also as your... lover, mayhaps, or something else of that ilk. I cannot be that, my most precious friend. I cannot give what you seek. I do not _have_ what you seek. '

Mairon understands, to a degree, what his Master is saying: that the burning need in himself, the want of physical closeness is not shared by the Vala. And yet still he rebels against this truth, for his loyalty is matched with a stubborn nature. With a single kiss, he remembers a transformation which could not have been stopped by any power save the end of the world itself; and avalanche of endless potential, curbed in one swift motion when Melkor said _no._

'What I called you here for is this: I prepared a gift which I hoped to please you with. Yet I see now that you will not enjoy what I have for you as much as it was intended,' the Vala says, shakes his head. His long hair is dark like the abyss before the beginning of the Music. He carries that abyss within himself, like a sadness, like a grief.

Mairon wants to take it into himself and burn it down, and the fire that dances in his eyes at the idea is like the embodiment of the fury of a newly awakened volcano.

'I will joyously accept whatever it is my Lord deems appropriate to gift me with,' he says instead of voicing any of his internal thoughts. He knows that Melkor knows of them, anyway. There is nothing he is capable of hiding from his Master. He welcomes the intrusion of Melkor's mind within his own always.

Yet-

'You shall hold a fortress not unlike this one. You shall be Lord of that fortress, my Lieutenant, my right hand, my eyes and my most trusted,' Melkor decrees and although he intends it as a gift indeed (for he would not lie about it, and he would not punish Mairon under the veil of such pretence), to Mairon, it feels like a sentence.

'My Lord,' he whispers and swallows, but still his voice would not rise above that low whisper full of pain; and he knows there are tears welling up in his eyes (he will not cry, only the weak cry and he shall not be weak, he shall not be undeserving in the eyes of his Master). 'Such honour, my Lord,' he speaks and averts Melkor's eyes, escapes his gaze. 

A fortress he shall rule, and power he shall have, but all that is meaningless for without the proximity of his Lord, without the presence of the mightiest of the Valar, he is nothing. Even near him, he shines with but a pale reflection of Melkor's holy glory; and he fears: the disappointment he shall become, the wrath he shall induce, the ruin he shall cause. All of this, he wants to say, all of this he wants to voice, but Melkor demands:

'Now leave me,' and so Mairon does, ever obedient, ever the loyal servant to his Lord. 

 

Gothmog is not a friend. He is – he is like what Curumo used to be, ages and lifetimes ago: another being serving the same Master, another talent tied to the same work,  _another_ . Like all of his kind, Gothmog is barely contained within a body of flesh, an essence of infernal flame held under the constraints of heavily-tattooed, dark flesh. Taller than Mairon, taller even that Melkor's favoured physical form, the Balrog towers over everyone and carries an air of import, of arrogance.

Yet he does act as would a friend, cornering him in the forge and speaking to him of nonsense: albeit a foolish one, for he worries like Curumo used to worry, and the world that they belong to, the side they have all chosen, has no place for such sentiment. For worry festers and rots, like an untended wound, and in its place grows fear. Enough times has this happened to the creatures in Melkor's employ and Mairon knows: caring for those who are unable to care for themselves is but a waste, and caring for those who know how to fend for their own an even bigger waste. Time and effort get drowned into an endeavour which can only bear decayed fruit. No. He shall not condone this.

'You are hurt by this,' Gothmog observes, 'by his inability to love you like you love him.'

'You are a fool to care,' Mairon replies, glares, shakes his head. 'And hurt I am not, nor is it your place to point out any perceived hurts within me. I have my Lord's trust and with that, I am content.'

'And yet you must be displeased, since you took it out on a prisoner in the dungeons,' says the Captain of Balrogs. He still has an accent that betrays his origins. He still sounds as though one of  _them_ . He is not a friend.

'The prisoner had it coming,' Mairon says simply. It is but the truth: a thief's justice is to be punished when caught, and when caught the second time, the punishment must be more dire. The third time, well, the third time is the last: and the thief of Melkor's attention, the particularly bright-minded Elf with ink all over his face and chest, with skilled hands and a cunning mind, had been unfortunate. 

It is not jealousy for Mairon is above such notions. 

'They have a name for you,' Gothmog announces, inclining with his head in the direction of the barracks where the lower rank soldiers live. 'They call you  _Gorthaur_ , and can you blame them? You have changed from when they first admired your skill in the forges. Now your craft turns to war and torture, and you scare them mightily. Is this what you desire?'

'What I desire,' Mairon repeats after him and trails off.

What he desires is sinful. What he desires is his Master's pale white form spread out under him, lost and trapped within the throes of ecstasy; a joining in flesh and in mind, an act against the very nature of creation: a marriage of two beings who are by their lonesome above all else in existence and whose union would shake the World to the core. 

_ What is a sin, if not a transgression against a moral norm set by one who is in power to rule over lesser beings?  _ Thus has Melkor once asked, long ago, ages ago, instigating a rebellion in Mairon's heart against the decrees of those he had once been enslaved to. Oh, the promises spoken in that time, oh, the dreams envisioned: a glorious love and a glorious labour, the World freed and left to its own perfect order under the watch of its protector! Yet all of these dreams are null now, promises have proven empty: the mightiest of the Valar is now the one to declare Mairon's love for him a sin, and with that sin Mairon shall live for all eternity and even beyond. 

'How is this that you can never be satisfied with what you possess?' Gothmog asks, seemingly baffled as he walks behind Mairon who is too lost in thought to realize when they even left the comfort of the forge. 

'What could you possibly mean?' The newly named Lieutenant answers with a question of his own. 

'You hold all the trust our Lord is likely to put in anybody. You are the one admired and followed by the troops and by the servants alike. You have a talent that surpasses even that of Aule, I hear, and yet: yet you still crave more,' Gothmog replies. He shrugs. 'It is also you, not I, who has a way with words, so I cannot better explain it but: I say you are greedy.'

'What a plain word,' Mairon mocks. 'What folly! Call me voracious or rapacious, or avaricious or desirous even, but greedy? Ah, Gothmog: you are no poet, that much in your statement is true.'

But Gothmog is not fooled, and he says, 'and you are no liar. You attempt to diverge this conversation into a discussion of matters which hold no import, but tell me this: do you not want what you cannot have? Do you not wish  _ he  _ was in your arms, beloved, instead of the distant God he is to all of us?' 

And Mairon hits him, fast, hard, punches a blow up above Gothmog's collarbone, near his throat: and his fury is silent and hurtful; he stands above the Balrog when he collapses in a coughing fit to the dirt and snow of the courtyard, and he watches him suffer with a smirk stretched out on his lips. There is a certain degree of satisfaction to this, he realizes: to know he has an advantage, to know he can overpower someone this easily. Like in the dungeons, when the ink-covered Elf was crying and blurting out incoherent nonsense; like when Mairon made that little low-life inspect the bloody organs being removed from his insides with precision. Oh, yes, did he keep that traitor alive for long after he went insane with pain and fear: words have so much power, he thinks, and he can use words spoken in a certain way to force weaker beings into submitting to his very will; because their weakness gives them the potential to obey, to give up their own free will, and the only thing he has to do is exploit that potential.

There are so few beings which are not inherently weaker than himself.

'You shall not die,' he told that Elf and it was enough to keep his wretched soul inside the mangled body, and to keep mangling it further: to burst the eyeballs for daring look at his Lord with such wanton adoration; to rip out the tongue for the blasphemous worship spouted in his Lord's presence; to shred the throat that had held the voice in which the Elf used to sing to his Lord's entertainment; to finally crush the brain which concocted the foolish ideas of his Lord's love.

To Gothmog, he says simply,

'Do not presume to speak to me like you are my equal,' and he turns to go back to the forge where a set of armour awaits some final touches; but the Balrog grabs the edge of his robes and speaks, too.

'Oh, equal to you I have no wish to become, _Gorthaur_ , and I shall not. For truly, is there a creature more pitiful than yourself in this entire fortress? In this entire world, even! I pity you, and I laugh at you as well: you call me a fool, but none are more foolish than you have become. I know what you did to that Elf and I know why you did it: and words will spread, and everyone will call you by your new name. The Admirable is no longer! All hail The Cruel, the punisher, the unjust: the lord of suffering and undue torture, The Cruel who sees not the love harboured for him and in his envy mistakes it for a threat to his status!'

'What are you saying,' Mairon demands, narrowing his eyes, soul catching on fire in anger and – something, like an uncertain pang of, regret? Guilt? No. 

'Oh, if only sometimes you looked upon those you deem lower beings than yourself! That stupid Elf loved you and worshipped you, and spoke often to his family of all the times he saw you from a distance. His songs were for you, his loyalty was to you, and just look where it got him: cut open, driven into insanity with pain, and tell me, did he fight you when you were butchering him? Did he try to escape?' 

He did not, Mairon remembers, and his eyes widen and his throat constricts, and he  _feels_ so strongly, and he runs, he shifts forms, he leaves the flesh, he burns, he needs to be alone, he needs to- he was the same, the same as  _him_ , that foolish, weak soul, he was, he loved, him, him, and what did that do, where did that lead, you fell into a nightmare and I shall follow, what have I done,  _what have I done-_

 

_'My Lord, is there anything I can do for you?'_

_'My Lord?... Have I displeased you?'_

_'I... I am ready to take any punishment, my Lord.'_

_A sound of chains rattling. A cut. A hiss of pain, held within._

_'I trust your justice, my Lord,' whispered through bloodied lips._

_'P-please...'_

 

The new form he adopts after the memory of unwarranted cruelty passes and fades is created after the likeness of that Elf. Gold hair and fair skin, freckles and eyes like pale gold. An air of innocence and a readiness to please. He dismisses that form immediately: the reflection of that face staring back at him from the surface of the ice angers him, reminds him of things, _weakens him_. No – he shall not carry himself in the flesh of a weak being who dared love someone so out of his reach. He shall not fall prey to a sentiment forced upon him by a foolish Balrog who understands nothing. That Elf – was nobody, but in his final moments he served with usefulness: after all, Mairon did learn upon him to control the soul of another. His sacrifice was a gift, a gift presented out of love.

In the new fortress that he becomes lord of, Mairon shall cherish that gift; and many more will he demand to master this new power of his sorcery to further his Lord's goals. And those are several and will be even more: and to Melkor's glory shall Mairon labour in the dark halls of Angband.

He misses his Lord. He will miss him more, soon.

A cruel war is nearing.

In its aftermath, a change.

 

The nameless Elf will be forgotten, in the end of all things. Gone even from Mairon's memories, he will have no further role to play. His face, however, worn many ages later in a place very far away, will bring a cruel gift to another love.

But that is another story.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> ugh whoever that Elf-Orc was, he made me cry. thanks, nameless Elf. at least Mairon gets to keep your looks for later to mess up with Tyelpe's life i guess. wait that is not a positive thing.
> 
> also my headcanon is that the Orcs really only started looking deranged and ugly after Melkor went truly mad, around the time of the loss of his Silmaril to Luthien. there will be fic about that. there will be fic about everything. i might be too invested in this depiction of angbang. 
> 
> (also hey, evil = ugly is just the winner side's propaganda, come on.)


End file.
